A consortium of construction industry firms, including Tata Steel, Elliott, The McAvoy Group, and Blacc is developing modular, offsite-manufactured production of kits to become school buildings to provide thousands of children access to education in safe, purpose-designed environmentally efficient buildings.

According to Construction Enquirer, the offsite manufacture of the modular units will reduce the waste normally generated during traditional on-site building methods, as well as providing a quick production time, and also be 100 per cent recyclable at the end of their lifespan, giving taxpayers excellent value for their money.

The entirely UK-designed and built solution will allow schools to grow, develop, and adapt as needed. Also, the offsite manufacturing technique means it is ideal for providing emergency medical facilities during a time of crisis.

The announcement of the consortium comes after the government announced a scheme to modernise the UK’s schools with a rebuilding program that is due to begin in 2020-21. The initial 50 projects will be supported with over £1 billion in funding. More details on the 10-year construction programme will be set out at the British Government’s next Spending Review.

The consortium aims to cut construction costs and whole life costs of buildings by a third, and the delivery of completed buildings being completed in half the time, while also reducing the construction sector’s carbon emissions by 50 per cent.

Phil Clements, Tata Steel UK Technical Director, said: “Traditional building techniques using bricks, mortar and wood can be slow, wasteful and have a significant impact on the environment.

“This project will allow thousands of children to have access to education in buildings which have been designed using the latest technology, constructed off-site to lower emissions and can be repurposed and recycled.”

The manufacture of the school buildings has borrowed its methodology from the car manufacturing industry, who build several different models of car on the same chassis. The consortium aims to set the blueprint for the future of construction.

The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)-funded project will show how standardised components can be mass-produced to deliver better quality, performance and value for sectors including education and healthcare.

The consortium made up of off-site building experts Blacc; the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC); two off-site manufacturers, Elliott Group and the McAvoy Group; Tata Steel; the Active Building Centre (ABC); and the National Composite Centre (NCC).

Tata Steel has recently committed to protecting job at their Port Talbot steelworks, as they plan to close two blast furnaces and replace them with electric arc furnaces, to aid in the reduction of carbon emissions, which would allow the steelworks to apply for hundreds of millions of pounds via the government’s Project Birch fund to help companies recover from COVID-19

Concerns that the furnace closures would cause mass redundancies, when half the Welsh town are employed by the firm, were told by Tata senior management that “protecting jobs will be a central factor” in the planned changes.

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